Page 85 of The Cruelest Kind of Hate
But he did this all on his own.
I squeeze her back with the same undiminishable excitement, lifting her off her feet and twirling her around as she squeals and clings to me even tighter. I never want this feeling to end. I never want to know what it feels like not to hold her in my arms.
The world stops again, but for a different reason this time. The world stops and allows me to immortalize this memory, to lose myself in her smell and her laughter and the way she holds on to me as if she’s afraid of being forgotten. Or maybe she’s afraid that someday she’ll be swept away by the tide and washed out to sea, to live as a faceless character in a hazy story that Ikeep locked away deep inside, so nobody knows the true extent of the pain I’d live with if I ever lost her.
But I could never forget Cali. Never in a million years.
When I set her back down, she wields a high-voltage smile despite being slightly breathless, and her hair is tousled around her blanched face.
I pull her so she’s flush with my chest, brushing my lips over hers without fully caving into a kiss—because once I start, there’s no way in hell I’ll be able to stop. “You know what this means, right?”
She gasps into my mouth, steadying her hands over my hastening heart. “What?”
“I’m booking you a tattoo session.”
29
VICTORY’S SWEET, BUT REVENGE IS SWEETER
CALISTA
“Two scoops of fudge! No, three! No, maybe two,” Teague debates with himself, standing on his tiptoes to peek over the counter.
He looks to me for permission, popping his lower lip out in that cute kid pout, and I ruffle his helmet hair. “You can get as many scoops as you want, Squirt,” I tell him.
Gage squats down—which seems to be less strenuous for him after all the sessions we’ve done together—and nearly explodes my ovaries with one of his famous, dimple-popping smiles. “Little Man, if you want an ice cream cake, I’ll buy you an ice cream cake,” he says to Teague.
Teague’s eyes turn into saucers. “Really??? Cali, can I pleeeaaaseee have an ice cream cake! Please, please, please.”
I frown. “Let’s just stick to one cup, okay? That’s a lot of sugar for someone as little as you.”
“I’m not little! I’m five feet tall!” he counters, huffing and turning his nose up.
“You’re four feet and seven inches.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, you’re a big poopy face!”
This little shit’s going to send me to an early grave, I swear. Ilunge forward and dive my hands into his ticklish sides, scratching my fingers over his ribs as he collapses into a fit of screams and giggles.
“He’ll have three scoops!” I yell over the commotion, dodging an incoming elbow while he flails his limbs like he’s being kidnapped in broad daylight.
I’m so proud of how hard Teague’s worked over these past few months. He scored the winning shot! Granted, it’ll cost me a stupid tattoo—which I’m definitely not getting—but if that empty promise tricked Gage into bargaining with him to score the last goal, then it was a sacrifice well made.
Gage rises to a stance and leans against the counter. “And two scoops of vanilla and two of rocky road,” he orders, fishing his wallet out from his pocket.
Teague squirms under my hands, trying to retaliate with a tickle strategy of his own, but his adorable, stubby little arms can’t reach me. I eventually grant him mercy and haul him up by his underarms, plopping him back on his feet.
“We don’t call others poopy faces in public,” I mock-chastise.
Nobody else is in the shop since it’s a little past five on a weekday, which gives us some much-needed quiet after the maelstrom of hockey that’s been ravaging the household this past week. Teague needed me to read him an extra story every night because he was so worried for the game today. And in the end, there was nothing for him to worry about. Gage has been telling me that scoring a winning shot is averyhard thing to do. I still don’t understand hockey. I don’t know if I ever will, but I’m pretty sure I can count on Gage to give me the CliffsNotes version of it.
The server deposits three cups onto the counter, all overflowing with miniature mountains of sugary decadence, and her ponytail bobs as she waits for Gage’s payment to go through.
“Fine. But can I call them cunts instead? That’s what Gage said I can call them!” Teague exclaims in his outdoor voice.
Oh my God.
My hand slaps instantly over Teague’s mouth as Gage chokes on his own spit, all while under the unamused eye of the girl slowly pushing buttons on the cash register.
